Sumlin said he’s not reevaluating who will be starting with four regular-season games remaining, including 11 a.m. Saturday against Auburn at Kyle Field.

“Not right now,” said Sumlin, in adding that while Starkel did some good things, there were “issues” as well in his first action since breaking his ankle in the season-opening loss at UCLA.

Sumlin on Tuesday during his weekly press conference shouldered the blame for the lopsided loss to the Bulldogs, and kept to his vow that this is a different team than the one of the past few seasons that’s crumbled in November. That remains to be seen, starting Saturday against Auburn, and once the Aggies play New Mexico in a final nonconference contest, wrapping up the regular season on the road against Mississippi and LSU.

McBride's son, Will, made his college debut for Tennessee (4-5, 0-5 SEC) in a 24-10 win over Southern Miss at Neyland Stadium to snap a four-game losing streak.

McBride, a freshman, was headed to a redshirt season. However, junior quarterback Quintin Dormady underwent season-ending shoulder surgery this week. It was apparent that McBride was next in line if starting QB Jarrett Guarantano was injured.

Danny Etling will remain the Tigers’ starter, coach Ed Orgeron said, despite his struggles against top-ranked Alabama. Coaches inserted true freshman Myles Brennan for the final drive of the 24-10 loss on Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Etling was not injured, the coach said.

“I thought he looked good. Obviously (he felt) some pressure. Made some good decisions,” Orgeron said of Brennan, 3-for-5 for 18 yards. “Myles is going to have a chance to be our quarterback. I don’t know if he’s going to be our quarterback next year, but he has to get some experience and we just wanted to give him a shot.”

The team will not change its season-long plan of Brennan backing up Etling and seeing spot duty in preparation for what many believe to be a starting role next year.

“We’ll have the same plan,” Orgeron said when asked if Brennan could take the starting gig.

Two years ago Jake Hubenak bailed out the Aggies when they needed him most. Texas A&M’s two starting quarterbacks had abruptly transferred in December 2015, leaving Hubenak as the lone guy leading the Aggies into the Music City Bowl against Louisville.

Hubenak, in his first start at A&M, nearly led the Aggies to a victory against Lamar Jackson and the Cardinals, with a final heave to the end zone falling incomplete in the 27-21 loss.

The third-string senior on Thursday announced via Twitter that his college career is done, with the 7-5 Aggies still to play a final game in the Belk Bowl against 7-5 Wake Forest on Dec. 29.

“I had surgery yesterday to repair my torn labrum that I had battled with all season,” Hubenak wrote, adding a thank you to the “12th Man” for making his time spent as an Aggie memorable.

Florida’s quarterback picture came into clearer focus Thursday when Malik Zaire’s father confirmed the veteran quarterback will not pursue an extra year of eligibility to return to the Gators.

Because he sustained a broken ankle in the second game of his 2015 season at Notre Dame, many wondered if Zaire would pursue a medical hardship waiver for a sixth year and try to compete for the starting job at Florida in Dan Mullen’s spread offense — a better fit for his skill set than the pro-style system he played in last fall.

As his father Imani Zaire told SEC Country, though, there was no substantial conversation between Zaire and Mullen about his future, and the graduate transfer QB was simply over the college football experience after a frustrating season at Florida.

So that leaves incoming freshman Emory Jones as the only dual-threat quarterback in the mix for the Gators.

He’ll be competing with incumbent starter Feleipe Franks, who struggled with his decision-making as a redshirt freshman in 2017, as well as untested redshirt sophomore Kyle Trask and redshirt freshman Jake Allen.

The expectations many already had for Jones to seize the starting job in his first season will only increase now that it’s known Zaire won’t be an option as a veteran dual-threat QB to serve as a placeholder in this new offense.

Following a three-day hunting trip in the "middle of nowhere" north of the Mexican border, the Tigers' starting quarterback announced his decision to return to school for his redshirt junior season and pass on the NFL Draft for at least one more year.

Stidham put together the second-most prolific passing campaign in school history, completing 66.5 percent of his passes for 3,158 yards, 18 touchdowns and six interceptions. Only former Auburn quarterback Dameyune Craig, a one-time Tigers assistant coach [hired by Jimbo Fisher at A&M this week], has passed for more yards in a single season in program history; Craig passed for 3,277 yards in 1997.

New Nebraska coach Scott Frost: "It was a decision I don't know I would have been courageous enough to make. That's the answer you want to hear. The other answer is that he was pretty obviously better and they had 12 games to figure that out and didn't," Frost told ESPN's Sam Khan Jr. "Coach Saban is above criticism with everything he's accomplished, so I don't mean it that way, but I recruited Tua out of high school and knew what he could do and it doesn't surprise me that he did what he did. Jalen's a great player, too. That was a very bold and courageous move and I'm surprised it didn't happen earlier (in the season)."

Interestingly enough, my colleague at OregonLive.com, Andrew Nemec, pointed out the irony of questioning why Tagovailoa wasn't playing more during the season.

While the quarterback coach/offensive coordinator in 2014, Frost was part of a Mark Helfrich staff that elected not to offer Tagovailoa a scholarship as a sophomore, despite his heavy interest in the Ducks due to his relationship with, and admiration for, Oregon legend Marcus Mariota.

Never before in Saban's run at Alabama had such a compelling quarterback competition presented itself in such a way. https://trib.al/8mSPYZT

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Never before in Saban's run at Alabama had such a compelling quarterback competition presented itself in such a way. It's hard to imagine any situation mirroring the night vs. day dynamic of Hurts in the first half Monday and Tagovailoa in the second.

From no life to an up-tempo, accurate passing game with multiple targets, it looked like two different teams out there.

Still a teenager, Hurts is suddenly the old-guard. And the change the internet clamored for worked even better than expected.

Now that the natural order has been disturbed, where does this whole dynamic go forward? Saban made no proclamations the morning after the championship game.

"Look," he said, "we have two good quarterbacks on our team, no doubt. Both of them made a great contribution to the success of the team this year. I think that we haven't really made a decision about that. I don't think it's imperative that we make one right now. We've got two fine young men who really respect each other and have worked hard to help each other all year long. Hopefully we'll be able to continue to do that in the future."

2016 SEC quarterback class signaled a new era in the nation’s top conference.

Three of the top five quarterbacks in the nation, according to the 247 composite rankings, signed with SEC teams. Shea Patterson — the nation’s top-ranked quarterback — signed with Ole Miss. Jacob Eason, the No. 2 quarterback, stuck with Georgia even after Mark Richt’s departure. No. 5 Feleipe Franks signed with Jim McElwain and the Florida Gators.

All three coaches those players signed with are now gone. And, at this point, two of those three have transferred. Patterson, after the Hugh Freeze scandal and NCAA violations at Ole Miss, transferred to Michigan. Eason headed back to Washington after the emergence of super freshman Jake Fromm.

In the 2016 class, eight 4-star quarterbacks signed with SEC schools. Two years later, four of those players have transferred, and there’s a very real chance that seven could finish their careers elsewhere.

The only safe bet in the class to finish at the school they signed with? Jake Bentley at South Carolina. He was one of two 4-star quarterbacks the Gamecocks signed in that class. Brandon McIlwain, ranked 10 spots ahead of Bentley at the position, transferred to Cal following his freshman year after he was replaced as starter by Bentley.

Feleipe Franks and Jarrett Guarantano both played in 2017 to very mixed results, and now have to deal with a new staff at Florida and Tennessee, respectively.

Perhaps the most discussed potential transfer is Alabama’s Jalen Hurts...